26 Years Old, Looking for a Better Smile - Cork, Ireland
I'm on tray 5 of 52 of invisalign, and I've...
Will send a proper update shortly (once I figure out the review system!)
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Deciding to get my teeth straightened
For as long as I can remember I've never been totally happy with my teeth. In school I was referred by my dentist for an orthodontic consultation, where I was told that I could benefit from braces, but as my case wasn't very severe I was put on a very long waiting list ... 10 years later and I never heard back from the public ortho! So finally at 26 after saving up a bit of money I decided to look into my treatment options for getting a nicer smile :-)
I went for four different consultations with both orthodontists and cosmetic dentists. As I teach I didn’t want braces that were very noticeable. Also I didn’t HATE my teeth, but I did want a nicer smile. For this reason I wasn’t going to commit to any very long or drastic treatment plan, or one that would impact on my day-to-day life too much.
I narrowed my options down to either 6 month smiles or invisalign. I choose invisalign for three reasons: 1) It is less noticeable, 2) treatment time was only 6 months longer (12 months total), 3) One of the orthodontists that I consulted with had a €500 off offer (more of a bonus for me, than a strong reason to choose this).
I was really excited getting my impressions done in June 2014. I was under the impression from my ortho that I would be consulted throughout the treatment planning, however 2 months later I was called in for my first appointment and shown the clincheck at the same time. After trying to contact my ortho on the phone on numerous occasions, she finally replied to an email and answered my question that I would need 53 aligners, i.e. over two years of treatment!
I was unhappy with this, as the main reason I chose invisalign was the 1 year treatment. Ok, I know that this is an estimation, but for a professional to be 12 months off in their estimation is a bit much! Anyway, I was unhappy with the plan, and wanted to re-assess my options. However my ortho assured me that invisalign was the best option for my case, and that she could cut the treatment time down to 1 year by recommending that I change my aligners weekly (she never mentioned acceledent) and that she would do a mid-course correction as soon as possible.
Even though I was wary that the treatment length could be changed so drastically, I decided that she was a professional and that I should trust her advice. So now I am on aligner number 7 after having changed them weekly.
Thanks for reading, I would love to hear from anyone else who might have had a similar experience, or any other comments
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Nice ClinChecks, by the way!
I'm a little confused--if you have 52 aligners that you switch weekly, I'm not sure how that's two years instead of one. I've heard of doctors just making double the amount of aligners out of the same case (same cost to the patient) and then the patient gets to switch to a fresh aligner every week. So that'd be the equivalent of a 26-aligner treatment, or a year. So, very interested to hear more, is what I'm saying :D!
Have you met Kateh4264 yet? She's our other Irish Invisaligner, though she's from Galway. That's a couple of hours away from Cork, yeah?
Oh, and let me know if you have specific difficulties with the site features. I'm here to help :).
Do you have the text of the part of the review that didn't get published? Because I can add that to the end. But I don't see any unpublished content other than your question, which the publishers will publish shortly.